Nationalities

[Rumple Foreskin]

I think you've missed the point a bit, Rumple mate =) raphy

No way! It's right on top of my little bitty head where its always been. Actually, I'm just camping out in Texas and it's hard not to make fun of the ones who take being a "Texan" a little too seriously.

My home state is Louisiana which may have a one-of-a-kind flag in that it shows a pelican feeding its young. I wonder if any other official "flag" has such a nurturing image? Of course, before Thomas Jefferson bought the place, it'd always been either a French or Spainish colony which may explain a lot.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[raphy]

Yeah, them french types are weird

 

[Guest]

Rumps, as the French and Spanish were from Catholic nations the pelican fits. It's a long-used Catholic symbol for Christ (who has many femme/maternal symbols in the RCC). I don't know what the actual bird on the LA flag is doing but the images the church uses are the mother bird letting her young peck at her chest, i.e., giving her blood and life for them.

Perdita, survivor of Catholic schools

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Perdita,

This site has an image of the flag along with a close-up of the pelican, which is feeding its young.

La. State Flag

Rumple

 

[Quasimodem]

...the flag along with ... pelican, which is feeding its young. La. State Flag
Rumple

That is the most POUCHLESS PELICAN I ever did see!

There is a strange bird named the Pelican,
Whose beak can hold more than its belly can,
But, I don't see how that is possible.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Quasi,

I figure that pelican's either just emptied its pouch or its been on Slim-Fast way too long.

RF

 

[Xelebes]

Me and my parents = red and white bars with a funny leaf stuck in the middle. Looks like a dyes red pot leaf... he he

My grandmother = St. David's Cross

My great-grandparent's cross = St. Andrew's Cross

My lastname bears the flag of Swabia... my last name being iSebold (which is a derivative of Suebl).

 

[The_Fool]

Does waving around a bottle of Makers Mark count for anything?

 

[Lauren Hynde]

My Flags:
First Portuguese Flag (1081-1139)
Portuguese Naval Flag (1495-...)
Last Flag of Portuguese Monarchy (1830-1910)
Portuguese Republic Flag (1910-...)
and, of course,
Futebol Clube do Porto

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Does waving around a bottle of Makers Mark count for anything?

You bet; especially if my glass is empty. RF

 

[Icingsugar]

Ah. I did wonder where the hell .pt was. Should have known.

Futebol Clube do Porto

Now, that's the important one, right?

/Ice
waves:

(ok, so now there's a fair chance thoer swedes here won't talk to me, but I'll take that risk )

/Ice

 

[oggbashan]

Welsh Dragon
Arms of Gibraltar
White Stallion of Kent (The prudes have emasculated recent versions)
Union Jack

My own country's flag which was sandy brown - the same colour as my country. It confused my enemies because they couldn't see the flag.

Og, Dead King of Bashan

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Now, that's the important one, right?

Do you even have to ask?

 

[Linbido]

Red White and Blue here.

Not the big one in the west, but the one with fiords and stuff.

I since my years in London exile, I occationally wave an Arsenal scarf.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

 

[Chicklet]

I guess I know what you imply, but you do know that that combination of color is the single most common one for national flags? I can think of approx. 15 myself..

Then again, you COULD live in Russia, France or Chile for all I know.

I know. I considered using a different phrase, but you know what? I could really care less which red white and blue flag it was, so I thought that that was a good enough description.

 

[DirtyJJ]

If I flew a flag it would be the stars and stripes, but being a serious anglophile I would like to fly an English flag too.

 

[snooper]

Black with a yellow cross, in the same orientation as the St.George's cross.

 

[OldnotDead]

Ice-man,

Did your 15 included the noble red, white, and blue of the Lone Star Flag, aka, the flag of the former Republic of Texas and now the Texas State flag? http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ref/images/texasflag.jpg

Rumple Foreskin

FORMER?! Did you say FORMER?!

Hey, Rumply,

I'm guessing you are not a native of The Great Republic. My college advisor was and even though his expertise was in Ancient History, every San Jacinto Day we left Alexander or Ceasar frozen in time and learned all about the final battles to defeat Santa Anna.

My own family started out in what is now the US on lands claimed by both France and Spain. Of predominantly English and Scott stock, my father had a collection of all the family 'flags' to show our heritage. Unfortunately it was lost a few moves ago. With three of her four grandparents, Scottish, my wife has 'purified' our blood. At least that's the way she explains it

I cannot close though without saying I am grateful to all that have fought to keep flags flying freely where people can choose what to hang, wave or hoist.

 

[MathGirl]

I don't think my mother's family had a flag. If they had a family crest, though, it would probably have a large hook nose, sidecurls, and the three balls which universally denote a pawnshop.
Mazel,
MG
My father's flag would have a picture of a LoneStar longneck.

 

[SlickTony]

Red, white & blue here.

What part of Louisiana are you from, Rumple?

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Red, white & blue here.

What part of Louisiana are you from, Rumple?

Slick Tony,

I'm a "neck" from N. La. but spent a fair amount of time in S. La, while picking up a degree from LSU.

Rumple Foreskin.

 

[SlickTony]

Yeah? All my husband's people are from Columbia, the Caldwell Parish seat, although we have some that live in West Monroe. Do you ever pass through Alexandria? We used to, all the time. At the time we were driving through there most, they had these two horrible traffic circles. We called one of them the Big Circle of Anxiety, and the other one the Circle of Big Anxiety. I was gratified to see that they've done away with them.

My daughter got her BA and MA at LSU, and managed to get a year-long teaching job at SELU. It wasn't the kind of thing that people with the ink still drying on their MAs usually get, but you know how it is in Louisiana--if you're going to get a good job it helps to have connections. Actually, I'm sure that's true EVERYWHERE, but it was truer in Louisiana than anywhere else.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

SlickTony,

I'm from the same neck-of-the-woods. If you ever drove south from Alexandria before Interstate 49 was completed, this excerpt from one of my unpublished novels may ring a bell.

--

Alexandria, a small, nondescript city on the Red River, serves as the symbolic checkpoint separating Louisiana’s French, Catholic south from its Scots-Irish, Protestant north. In the pre-interstate days, a two-lane road weaved for miles south of town between a picturesque, tree-lined bayou and a string of whitewashed cabins that may or may not have once served as slave quarters.

Once beyond this section, open, flat farmland spread out on both sides of the road. A line marked only by an abrupt change in crops divided the marginally less hot, cotton-growing north from the slightly hotter, sugar cane-producing south.

During the fall, this entire stretch of highway would be filled with farm tractors pulling large trailers piled high with either cotton or cane. They’d be joined by the usual assortment of impatient 18-wheelers, self-important utility vehicles, and a vast multitude of pick-ups and cars filled with people whose sole desire was to get somewhere else as quickly as possible.

Heightening this sense of urgency was a nauseating odor that permeated the entire area; a smell unique to old sugar cane processing mills, such as the one located near the highway, and babies suffering from diarrhea. It all combined to change the road from slow and scenic to slow and deadly.

 

[SlickTony]

That sounds like an earlier Alexandria than the one I used to go through. I hear tell that there is one street running through the town that demarcates south Louisiana from north Louisiana, but can't remember which one it is.